1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device including an oxide semiconductor and a method for manufacturing the semiconductor device.
In this specification, a semiconductor device generally means a device which can function by utilizing semiconductor characteristics, and an electrooptic device, a semiconductor circuit, and an electronic device are all semiconductor devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, techniques to form thin film transistors (TFTs) using a semiconductor thin film (with a thickness of approximately several nanometers to several hundreds of nanometers) which is formed over a substrate having an insulating surface have attracted attention. Thin film transistors are widely applied to electronic devices such as ICs or electro-optical devices, and are particularly expected to be rapidly developed as switching elements of image display devices. Various metal oxides are used for a variety of applications. Indium oxide is a well-known material and is used as a light-transmitting electrode material which is necessary for liquid crystal displays and the like.
Some metal oxides have semiconductor characteristics. Examples of such metal oxides having semiconductor characteristics include tungsten oxide, tin oxide, indium oxide, and zinc oxide. Thin film transistors in each of which a channel formation region is formed using such metal oxide having semiconductor characteristics have already been known (Patent Documents 1 and 2).